Tenkar's Tavern: Do You Use Rule Sub Races in Your Campaigns?

Monday, March 30, 2015

Do You Use Rule Sub Races in Your Campaigns?

This is going to be one of the topics for tomorrow night's recording of the Brainstorm Podcast - creating sub races for pre-existing fantasy races.

Do you use sub races (grey / high / wood elves and the like) and if you do, do you create your own?

Do you prefer to stick to just the default version of the race? Why or why not?

Are sub races purely flavor, or should they have a game effect?

Let me know your thoughts - and you can hear mine on the podcast ;)

6 comments:

Greyhawk GrognardMarch 30, 2015 at 9:23 PM
Well of course. A world without tallfellows and stouts? Perish the thought!
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Doctor FuturityMarch 30, 2015 at 9:35 PM
Oh yeah, too many. Just pour through my blog for how deep the rabbit hole can go.
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Doc SavageMarch 30, 2015 at 10:53 PM
Does "rule sub race" mean a subspecies (or whatever the heck they're supposed to be) found in the standard rules? If so, no, but then I seldom use any "demihumans" at all of late and if I did I see no need to use a "sub race" any more than I need sub races of humans. Sounds very Apartheid.
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Timothy S. BrannanMarch 31, 2015 at 6:55 AM
Dozens! I have seven varieties of orc, nearly a dozen types of elves, three or four types of dwarf, the three accepted subraces of halflings and so on. Variety is the spice of life!
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Venger SatanisMarch 31, 2015 at 10:02 AM
When I first started running 5e, I didn't bother with them, but they're right in the rules and easy to integrate. Plus, they do add an extra something to the standard races. So, my last campaign, I let players do what they wanted.
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JDsivrajMarch 31, 2015 at 1:08 PM
if it fits the campaign, why not? I even use human subraces now and again with such folk as Pygmies and Amazons. It just gets tiresome when a subrace gets cooked up for every culture.
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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 52, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)

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Monday, March 30, 2015

Do You Use Rule Sub Races in Your Campaigns?

6 comments:

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